Army of Two was all about bromantic frolics through blood-spattered, limb-strewn locales. So was the sequel, The 40th Day. And so is the newest sequel, The Devil's Cartel. For some people, that just doesn't cut it anymore.

Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel drifts in a Lagrangian point of video game mediocrity. No force pulls it toward being a contemptible or even bad effort, but nothing budges it into the orbit of entertainment, even as a guilty pleasure, either.

In terms of 'bro' games, I’d thought I’d seen it all. I thought gaming had hit peak bro: the point at which bros could bro no further. I thought we’d fist-bumped, roadie ran and keg-stood our way to humanity's limit. Well, I was wrong.

Army of Two is a polarizing franchise. It had the one thing the original developer EA Montreal set out to create: exceptional cooperative gameplay. Everything else, with the exception of the over-the-top bromance comedy between the two private military contractors, fell to the wayside. Now with Dead Space developer…